


Lantern

by pr0nz69



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Abusive Parents, Backstory, Child Abandonment, First Meetings, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Master & Servant, Riches to Rags, Servants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:41:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25737442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pr0nz69/pseuds/pr0nz69
Summary: “You will serve His Majesty’s household,” Father says. “Perhaps life as a servant will teach you those traits you grievously lack: Respect, humility, and the virtue of hard work.”“A servant,” Jakob repeats. “You’re making me a servant.Me.”———The most undesirable of circumstances can lead to the most precious of encounters.
Kudos: 13





	Lantern

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my piece for _Devoted Servant_ , the Jakob charity zine! While I generally like the way the piece reads, I got a little ambitious with the word count, so it feels top-heavy and not fully realized. Maybe I'll come back to expand on it some day?

Mother’s hand is flushed red. She cradles it against her breast like a wounded animal and sniffles. Jakob clutches his valise and stares at the slice of bone-white moon out the carriage window. The night air stings his smarting cheeks.

It rained not long ago; the horses stumble through puddles on waterlogged cobblestone. A ghoulish mist breathes through the streets of the capital, and even the gas lamps can’t burn it away. Jakob wonders if the coachman is skilled or if it’s pure dumb luck that they haven’t upended themselves into a ditch yet. Not that it would matter terribly much to him if they did.

Father’s sitting rigid as stone on the other side of Mother and staring fixedly ahead into the grain of the wood in the carriage’s front panel. He hasn’t said anything since they left the manor, and Jakob prefers it that way. He hasn’t hit him, either, though, and that means that wherever they’re going, there will be people.

Castle Krakenburg isn’t where Jakob expects to end up. His heart thuds. He glances at Mother’s face, hoping to glean some clue as to why they’re here, but she’s composed now, her fake tears dried up.

They’re stopped at the outer wall by the castle guard and then again at the inner, but the family seal Father flashes each time gains them immediate clearance. Jakob’s been inside the castle before, as his parents’ ornament during diplomatic dinners, but his unease grows as the carriage trundles ever closer toward the looming fortress.

“Get out,” Mother orders when the carriage comes to a stop. Jakob hesitates, and she shoves him toward the door.

Mud slicks his boots as he follows his parents not toward the castle but instead to a smaller, nondescript building fairly hidden amongst black tangles of trees. He maintains some distance as Father raises his fist, flinching when it comes cracking against the door once, twice. They wait in silence until the door creaks open.

A man emerges, well-dressed but in the attire of a servant rather than an aristocrat. His eyebrows raise very slightly when he perceives his visitors, but he bows low all the same. “Good evening, milord, milady.”

Father doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “You know why we’re here.”

“The favor you’re owed, I take it?” The man rises from his bow, and his eyes fix on Jakob. “But it’s a difficult request, milord, even for you.”

Father produces a leather purse that clinks with its contents and hands it to the man. Jakob swallows, squeezing the valise he was ordered to pack.

“You’re selling me,” he says, numb.

“Are you stupid?” Mother snaps, slapping the back of his head. “Do you think we’re offering a dowry with you? Hmm? Don’t you understand how commerce works? Idiot boy!”

“You will serve His Majesty’s household,” Father says. “Perhaps life as a servant will teach you those traits you grievously lack: Respect, humility, and the virtue of hard work.”

“A servant,” Jakob repeats. “You’re making me a servant. _Me_.”

Mother swings out her arm and strikes his cheek again. “Be grateful we aren’t dropping you in a gutter! You will be fed and clothed and homed. If you behave, then perhaps we’ll come back for you.”

They don’t say goodbye when they leave him, so Jakob doesn’t, either. As soon as their carriage is out of sight, the man puts a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know what you did to get yourself thrown out like that,” he says, “but from here out, it would be best for you to forget you were ever nobility.”

Jakob shakes him off violently. “Don’t touch me! Forget I was nobility? Don’t make me laugh!”

He steps forward, unsteadily, and then stops. Exactly what is he intending to do? If he runs now, where will he go? He has two sets of clothes in his valise and a handful of gold. That’s it. He’ll starve. He’ll die. He can’t survive in the streets of Windmire.

“That attitude won’t serve you well in the king’s household,” the man says severely. Jakob doesn’t answer. “You can run, but whether or not you survive is on you. I’m sure you know, but Windmire’s a city of cutthroats and depravity. You can join a gang or you can sell yourself to a noble, and maybe you’ll make it. But you won’t be guaranteed three hot meals and a place to lay your head if you walk out of here.”

He shrugs as he starts back toward the door. “I don’t need a spoiled, rich brat playing at servant, so it doesn’t matter to me what you decide. But if you choose to stay, I expect you to put in the work.”

It’s humiliating. Demeaning. To be forced into servitude when all his life he’s been served. Jakob grits his teeth. But what choice does he have?

He turns from the road.

“Good choice,” the man says. “My name is Johan. I am the overseer of His Majesty’s household and, from today forward, your master. As such, I expect your obedience and your respect. As I said, forget you were a noble. You are a common servant now. I expect you to act like one. Is that clear?”

Jakob bites his tongue. “Yes.”

“ _Yes_?”

Jakob’s face twists. “Yes, _sir_.”

The servants’ quarters are bare and drafty. The room Jakob is delivered to has four cots, three already made up. Johan leaves him with a set of linens and the order to get some rest before the wakeup call at dawn.

“You’ll need it,” he warns him.

Whoever his roommates are, he doesn’t meet them by the time he’s made up his bed and crawled under the covers. They can’t still be working at this hour, can they?

The cot is thin; he can feel the boards underneath it. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep until he finds himself waking, unpleasantly, to the sound of a horn. And yet he doesn’t feel as if he’s slept at all.

His roommates are other boys his age and younger. None are nobility; they have the jaded faces and rough manners of the lower class. They’re already dressed by the time Jakob can pull himself out of bed; they stripped shamelessly in front of each other, making quips and small talk all the while.

He waits until they all leave before he dresses.

“Late,” Johan remarks when he finally finds his way to the mess hall. The other servants are already cleaning up after their meager repasts of grits and hardtack.

“What were you expecting?” Jakob snaps. That earns him a sharp boxing of the ears.

“Obedience.” Johan hands him a broom. “And respect. You are to sweep this room until the floor glistens. You missed breakfast, so you’ll go without. Let that be a lesson to you in punctuality. Furthermore”—he reaches out and tugs Jakob’s tie straight—“your uniform is sloppy. As former nobility, I’d expected you to at least know how to dress yourself properly. If you continue to present yourself so carelessly, I’ll turn you out. I’ll not have His Majesty suffer the sight of an untidy servant.”

Jakob’s cheeks burn. He’s used to being hit. He’s used to verbal barbs flung his way. But to have his competency challenged—and to have no grounds on which to deny said challenge—makes him feel, for the first time in his life, painfully inadequate.

He grips the broom handle tight between his fingers and sets about sweeping.

By the end of his first day, Jakob feels as if he’s worked seven. His arms and shoulders ache from the repetitive motions of his work. His legs and feet are sore from the near-constant standing. He’s moody and hungry, the scant food from dinner neither appetizing nor filling when he finally convinced himself to eat it. All day, Johan scolded and berated him for the quality of his work. Several times throughout the day, he contemplated strangling the man.

By the time he’s permitted to return to his room, the other boys are already asleep. He collapses onto his bed fully clothed, too tired to change into his night things. He expends the remainder of his energy on cursing his parents, wishing them all the misfortune his malice can conjure up. How _dare_ they abandon him like this? How _dare_ they sell him into servitude?

His second day is as grueling as the first. So is the third. By the fourth, he manages to get out of bed at the same time as the other boys, even suffers dressing alongside them. Johan praises him for his punctuality, but it feels condescending.

A week passes, and his cleaning doesn’t improve. A month passes, and still he breaks glassware almost daily, to the point where Johan begins to dock it from his pay. His wages are a pittance, though, and it’s with growing despair that he realizes they’ll never amount to anything substantial enough to free him from this place.

In the books he used to read, when the hero was confronted with adversity, he always found a way to overcome it through guile and hard work. He learned from his mistakes and rose to glory from his lowly station.

Jakob wishes he could burn those books now.

“I’m sending you to the Northern Fortress,” Johan tells him on the first day of his seventh week.

“Why?” Jakob asks, without any particular interest in knowing.

“Your incompetence has not gone unnoticed and casts a shadow over this entire household. The Northern Fortress is far from the king’s eyes, but you will still be serving a prince. I expect your best behavior. This is your final chance. I’ve kept my promise to your parents thus far, but I can’t help you anymore.”

Jakob turns from him. “As if they care what becomes of me now.”

As promised, a few days later, a man named Hayes comes to Castle Krakenburg to collect him.

“They may have gone soft on you here, boy,” Hayes says with a wicked smile, “but with me, you’ll fall in line.”

The Northern Fortress is even colder than Windmire. The servants, too, are distant and detached. Where before Jakob was subject to sympathetic looks and the occasional disparaging remark, here he’s roundly ignored. When he makes a mistake, Hayes hits him, sometimes with his fists and sometimes with whatever cleaning implement he has on hand. When the barrage of abuse doesn’t improve his performance, Hayes begins to cut his pay and then his meals.

 _I’m a slave,_ Jakob realizes before long, _and there is no salvation for slaves here._

He concocts a plan—a sloppy, inelegant plan, but what hope for relief does he have now? He’ll steal—some of the fine cookware or the embroidered silk napkins, maybe. Something that won’t be too terribly missed. He’ll escape this place and pawn them off, and with the money, he’ll make his own way. Somewhere, somehow, he’ll do it. It can’t be worse than this.

But the Northern Fortress _is_ a fortress. Jakob doesn’t make it far with a handful of plates, bowls, and silverware before a voice, chillingly familiar, stops him in his tracks.

“Where are you going at this hour with the dishware?” Hayes growls.

Jakob whirls around, and his pilfered goods spill from his arms. The bowls and plates shatter with a tremendous crash.

Hayes grabs him by the collar and thrusts him to the ground, into the splintered glass. “Spoiled! Useless! An utter waste of space!”

Jakob carefully picks himself out of the glass, wincing as he draws a shard out of his palm. Blood bubbles at the site.

“Were you attempting to steal from the royal family, boy? Do you know the penalty for crimes against His Majesty?”

Jakob, trembling, can’t answer.

“ _Death_. You’re out, boy. I won’t have you trampling over the prince’s honor—”

“Mr. Hayes.”

A small voice, yet commanding, echoes down the hall. Hayes whips around. Jakob, cautiously, raises his head.

“Your Highness,” Hayes gasps, dropping to one knee.

The boy behind Hayes is slight and delicate-featured, but his gaze has a surprising severity to it. He’s younger than Jakob, just at the cusp of pubescence. He’s dressed in his nightclothes, hair tousled, as if just awoken. Though Jakob has caught glimpses of him during his time here, they have never spoken even a word to one another.

“Why are you hurting my servant?” Prince Corrin asks.

 _My servant,_ Jakob repeats to himself, astounded that the prince recognizes him.

“I—Your Highness, that’s not—”

“You said you’ll throw him out. You threatened him with death. How could you do that?”

“That isn’t—subpar servants must be dismissed, Your Highness! If they cannot serve you, then—”

“But he _does_ serve me.” Corrin turns his attention to Jakob, who pointedly looks away. “I was looking for a conversation partner, for when Xander and Camilla and Leo aren’t here. Since he’s the youngest servant here, it has to be him. If you turn him away”—his voice takes on a harder edge—“I’ll be very angry with you.”

Hayes is silent for a long while. Then he stands with another bow. “Very well, Your Highness,” he says stiffly. “Then I shall leave him in your capable hands.”

Without another word, he departs, sweeping off down the corridor. Once he’s out of sight, Corrin crouches so that he’s on Jakob’s level.

“Hey,” he says. “Don’t feel bad. Everyone has a hard time starting out.”

Jakob looks up only to remember his station and downturn his eyes again. “I beg your forgiveness, milord, for the mess. I shall clean it up at once.”

He makes to rise but flinches and grips the gash in his palm with his other hand.

“You’re injured,” Corrin says softly, reaching for him. He takes his wrist into his hand, heedless of the blood, and examines the wound. “Let’s find a healer. The mess can wait.”

“Do you take notice of every new servant who comes to serve, milord?” Jakob asks.

To his surprise, the prince nods. “Not many people come or go from here. So I know all of the servants and staff. What’s your name?”

“Jakob, milord. And the way you describe it, this place seems almost like a prison...”

Corrin’s eyes widen. “No, not at all!” he exclaims, so earnestly that Jakob believes him. “I mean, I’m not allowed to leave yet, but Father says it's for my own protection. That’s why I’m training with my big brother Xander—to try and get stronger so I can protect myself!”

“That is a noble goal, milord. Though I may not be around to witness it, I will pray for your success.”

Corrin shakes his head. “I won’t let them throw you out! You’re still learning! With more practice, I think you’ll be a fine servant! I’ll call for you every day! I’ll make them see you’re worth it! So until that day comes where you’re a great servant, I’ll protect you!”

Jakob swallows. Somehow, he wants to cry, and yet for the first time in weeks, he isn’t unhappy. “Why?” he asks as Corrin gently guides him up. “Why would you do that for me? You don’t know me. I’ve even broken your fine porcelain. So why—why do you want to help me?”

“Because,” Corrin says, “you needed help. And what kind of prince would I be if I couldn’t even keep my own subjects from being tossed into the streets?”

Jakob has never met King Garon, but every Nohrian has heard tell of their monarch’s ruthlessness. All of the royal children, it is said, are cut from the same cloth.

Except, apparently, for this little prince, this little light, locked away in his dark fortress.

Jakob follows as Corrin leads him by the hand to the infirmary. The land of Nohr is cold and unforgiving. It’s all he’s ever known. But if this little light can save it, can save him, then he’ll enclose him like a lantern and protect him from the storm.

As long as he has that light, he’ll weather it willingly.


End file.
